Friday, October 15, 2010

More apple cakes: Hollandse appeltaart aka Dutch Apple Tart

Have you ever been to Amsterdam? If you have, then you surely remember this apple tart that was on offer everywhere - in pubs, in cafés. I definitely remember that, although I'm pretty sure it was called simply appeltaart and not Hollandse appeltaart there :) It's a delicious apple cake with a moist apple-raisin-cinnamon filling that's decorated with a criss-cross pattern of pastry strips. Pretty pretty, I'd say :)

Serve it with a generous dollop of whipped cream, or if you're feeling more glamorous, then some delicious home-made vanilla custard.

First, make the pastry. Whisk flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of your food processor, add cubed cold butter. Blitz until the mixture is moist and crumbly. Add most of the egg (leave some for brushing), blitz once again. Using your hands, press the pastry together into a flat disk. (Avoid overworking the pastry, as it'll become tough). Wrap into a clingfilm and put to the fridge to relax for about half an hour.

Make the filling. Peel and core the apples, cut into smaller chunks. Rinse and drain the raisins, add to the apple pieces alongside sugar and cinnamon.

Butter a 24 cm springform tin.

Roll 2/3 of the pastry into a about 30 cm circle, use this to line the base and sides of the cake tin. Sprinkle breadcrumbs onto the pastry base, top with apple and raisin mixture.

Roll out the rest of the pastry thinly (about 3 mm), then cut into 1.5 cm strips. Place the pastry strips across the filling, interlacing them. Brush the top with the leftover whisked egg.

Bake in the middle of a preheated 180 C/350 F oven for about 45-50 minutes, until the cake is golden brown.

I'm just having a piece of this cake now, still a tiny bit warm from the oven. YUM! I was nervous about how it would turn out because I totally forgot the layer of bread crumbs before putting in the fruit, and there was definite juice coming up through the lattices at the end--but in fact no sogginess resulted and the bottom crust turned out nicely. However, it did "sweat" quite a bit of butter around the bottom edge of the springform. Thanks for posting this!

So funny to see an Appeltaart on your blog! I am Dutch and can tell you there are so many variants of this pie. I like it with a filling of 'amandelspijs' which is a (dutch) coarse marzipan. I put it on the bottom of the pie and put the apple on top of it.